Reason Magazine on DRM

swankypimp writes "The new issue of Reason magazine has an article entitled "Hollywood vs. the Internet: Why Entertainment Companies Want To Hack Your Computer." The author discusses the watermarking of digital television as a springboard to Digital Rights Management on all consumer electronics and computers (as in the recently proposed Hollings bill). While light on the tech speak, it is a good summary of the political agendas behind copyright protection intended for those of us who don't constantly check the "YRO" section."

Comments

No support for pre-DRM media formats.

[galaga79]

One thing I found very interesting reading the article, which I had not considered beforehand, was as the author pointed out.

The digital videos they shot in 1999 may be unpayable on their desktop and laptop computers.

This is better further elaborated in the following passage...

There are some problems with this scheme. If Prince-ton computer scientist Edward Felten is right, a watermark that's invisible to the audience yet easily detected by machines will be relatively easy to remove. To put it simply, if you can't see it, you won't miss it when it's gone. Which is why the components of new home entertainment systems probably would have to be designed not to play unwatermarked content. Otherwise, all you've done is develop an incentive for both inquisitive hackers and copyright "pirates" to find a way to strip out the watermarks. But if the new entertainment systems won't play content without watermarks, they won't work with old digital videos or MP3s.

Now assuming the above is true and consider the worst case scenario of this bill coming to pass. Would this mean all those legitimate MP3s I downloaded from Epitonic and the Star Wars fan films would no longer be playable on new hardware since they lacked a watermark?

If this the case how would free content continue to exist and operate in this system, as they would obviously have to use watermarks just like copyrighted works if they want to be playable on the new hardware DRM systems. Ofcourse this sort of thing would piss of consumers and even some content providers.

Re:No support for pre-DRM media formats.

[einTier]

This is the nightmare I've been dreaming of since the SSSCA was first brought to my attention.

If the DMCA is any indication, they will stretch this law as far as they can. Don't forget that one of the very things the law states is that the devices must not play unauthorized, copyrighted material. Now, in the distant future, we may have computers so powerful that they can tell what media are copyrighted by checking some huge database -- and they'll probably also know what you're licensed to see and hear (and maybe taste, touch, and smell). Thankfully, computers aren't that powerful yet. So, the only way to keep people from stripping out copyrights or preventing them from playing that illegally copied DVD is to simply disallow the viewing of any non-watermarked media.

That might be fine for a new DVD-ish player, but it won't be fine when it's your new HDTV. Since your old home movies aren't watermarked, it will see them as "pirated" material. Basically, if this law passes, all your current media will be obsolete overnight, and you'll have to go buy new, watermarked copies of all of it, all over again, if you want to use it on the latest equipment.

Free content would have to go away. Why? Because no one could play it without the watermark. And, if you can embed your watermark on your home movies, source code, machine code, etc, then it's just a simple matter to embed your watermark directly into the pirated copy that you'd like to watch. You'd just pick up a ripped copy with no watermark off usenet, and then embed your own. So, the only people watching old or new original content will be those with the foresight to keep their old equipment.

In a sick sort of way, I almost hope one of these laws passes. It'll piss a ton of Joe Sixpacks off, and I'll make a killing on ebay before they finally overturn the law.

Encryption..

[gillbates]

About a year or so ago, slashdot featured an article on the then new CSS encryption. Basically, the scheme rendered obsolete keys unusable when they were cracked. The media was encrypted with several keys, and when one was cracked, the player would use another key, and all subsequent releases would use the uncracked/new keys. This way, a hacker who cracked the keys could view only old content; once it was discovered that the key had been compromised, the industry would simply stop using that key. Gradually, as time passed, all the keys in a given DVD player would be cracked, at which point the industry would stop using those keys and the user would have to buy a new DVD player to view new movies.

What's interesting is the genius of this approach - instead of hackers ripping off the movie industry, they would then be ripping off consumers - with every key cracked, more and more DVD players would become obsolete. Hence, both the tech factions and content factions stood to benefit from this arrangement.

The really interesting thing about this arrangement is that it is practical, though of limited effectiveness, and it requires no special legislation. If all copyrighted works were protected with such an encryption scheme, piracy would truly dwindle because the content providers could simply switch keys and render all of a hacker's previous efforts worthless. What really surprises me is that the content faction hasn't caught on. Here is a scheme which would allow them to literally make movies or songs unplayable after a certain length of time (say video rental...) and profit multiple times, and they are sleeping on it!

Instead, the content faction is fighting a losing battle against the tech faction. Computers, by their very nature need to make perfect copies to function, and any specialized hardware required for copy protection could simply be co-opted by a virtual machine. What is needed is a movie/music/book format which requires a licensed piece of hardware (say, a media board) to decrypt. Thus, those users who want to enjoy MPAA or RIAA licensed content would have to purchase a media board for their PC's, where as those who don't won't have their rights to create content taken away from them. Basically, there would be two types of content: unlicensed and licensed. Licensed content would require hardware decryption, whereas unlicenced content wouldn't. This solution works for both the content faction and the tech faction, without taking rights away from the individual to use their computers as they see fit.